Festivals, especially theatrical ones, use tools that can influence and shape public opinion - texts by masters, new proposals, interpretations, bold gestures, questions we are afraid to ask, leitmotifs and a place for discussion without fear, without censorship. Festivals build community, and the participating artists have an unprecedented opportunity nowadays to put a mirror to the faces of politicians, decision-makers and ourselves. We must take advantage of it.

Agata Grenda is currently the director of Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre. 

Agata Grenda is currently the director of Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre.
A civil servant both for the local and state offices with over a 12-year experience, as well as a cultural and social projects initiator and promoter for over 15 years, she worked as a Polish consul in New York for over seven years, serving first as a deputy director and later the director of the Polish Cultural Institute. Between 2011 and 2015 she was the director of the Department of Culture at the Marshal Office for the Wielkopolska Region in Poznań. In the years 2017-201, she runs her own company, GRENDA. PRODUKCJA KULTURY, which offered PR and production services both in the field of culture and business. She specialises in culture management, public diplomacy, international cooperation, and communication in business and culture. She is fascinated with practical business applications of organisation management, product management, and sales tools hitherto employed in culture.

As the director of the Department of Culture at the Marshal Office for the Wielkopolska Region in Poznań she supervised the work of 21 cultural institutions. Moreover, cooperating with the local communities, she initiated a project called "Wielkoposka: Rewolucje" which was proclaimed the most important socio-cultural event of the last few years.

She has been teaching cultural management at Polish universities. She holds excellent interpersonal skills and is a great speaker – coming from a family of actors, she is well accustomed to the stage and has learned how to use it to her advantage. A keen enthusiast of yoga, she is a certified yoga instructor.